Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
If you’re new to studio portraits, there’s just so much to learn about the light. Also, you have a choice between strobes/speedlights and continuous LED lights. If you can’t decide where to start, the latest video from Joe Edelman could be helpful and get you on the right track.
In this video, Joe breaks down the differences between these two types of lighting. You’ll learn their main uses, and also why it’s good to use one or the other in different situations.
All the time, I see new flash and strobe owners ask “How do I fire these things?, which isn’t an unreasonable question. For speedlights, it’s fairly straightforward. You buy the one that fits your camera’s hotshoe, slide it on, and beyond that you read the manual to figure out what all the different functions do. But what if you want to get it off your camera, or you’re using studio strobes?
In this video, Jay P Morgan shows us the three main ways to fire flashes with your camera. It’s fairly simple to do using either a sync cable, optical slave or radio slave. But each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. Not all methods suit all circumstances. So, it’s good to know and understand all three, and when might suit a certain situation best.
This has to be one of the silliest things I’ve seen for a while. Not the product itself, but how it’s being marketed. Iris claims to offer professional automated headshots in a booth for $20. Your $20 gets you a “photo session” including half a dozen shots, “helpful posing tips”, and one free high res digital file (the other 5 cost an extra $5 each).
When you watch the promo video, don’t worry, your speakers aren’t broken, there’s just no audio to go with it.
There are many rules in photography, but few of them are set in stone. When it comes to photographing people, though, there are a few rules that are simple common courtesy. As well as a few that are just a really good idea.
In this video from photographer Manny Ortiz, we learn 5 Dos and 5 Don’ts of working with models. The tips don’t just apply to actual models, though. Model in this context is really just any human subject. With the assistance of his wife Diana, we get to also hear things from the perspective of the person standing in front of the lens, too.
We often hear that “lighting is everything”, and to a point it is. But when it comes to portraits, so is the posing of your subject. It doesn’t matter how great your light is. If the pose isn’t flattering, your subject’s not going to look great.
In this minute long photography tips video from the guys at SLR Lounge, we see how directing our subject gives a very different look. Nothing has changed with the camera or the lighting. It’s all about the mood and the pose. And it’s just three simple steps that can be done in a few seconds.
Liquids are a great source of photographic fun. It’s a topic which fascinates many photographers. There’s so much to experiment and play with. Splashes are particularly intriguing to me a a photographer, because you never really know exactly what you’re going to get. You might fire of 50 or 100 shots before you get the one you want.
That’s where this video from photographer Dustin Dolby steps in to save you a little frustration. With minimal kit, and a little compositing, you can often create fantastic end results much more quickly.
Nearly every professional studio I’ve ever used has these ‘polyboards’ and you‘ve probably even seen them yourself but may not have known what they’re used for. Polyboards are polystyrene boards that usually measure 4 feet wide by 8 feet high and are normally 2 inches thick.
One of the other defining characteristics is that they are often white on one side and black on the other. This dual colour is very important as this gives them two key uses.
In this article I am going to highlight 5 key things that I see portrait photographers doing that I consider to be ‘in need of improvement’ and although there are no hard-and-fast rules to photography, try to think of it as being similar to an instrument being slightly out of tune or a meal that’s perhaps a little too salty. These are glaringly obvious errors to the well informed but may not be so obvious to those who are just starting out.
I’ll also just say that photography is a subjective field and just like any other art form there is going to be people who agree and disagree with what I class as ‘mistakes’. History lecturers for example, will teach us that the Berlin wall fell in 1989, mathematicians will tell us that 2 + 2 = 4. These are what we refer to as facts but in our world of the arts we aren’t quite so strictly governed and it isn’t quite as simple.
If you’re a bit of a macro addict, photographing bugs while out and about can be great fun. There’s so many out there to see, and they come in some fantastic shapes, sizes and colours. Not everybody wants to photograph them sitting on a leaf or crawling across the ground, though. Sometimes you want to have a cleaner look that features just the subject.
In a studio, this is quite easy to do, but how can you get a studio type of look while out in the middle of nowhere? Well, here’s a video from photographer Phil Torres at The Jungle Diaries to show us. It’s easy to do, and if you already have a macro lens, it only requires a couple of inexpensive extra bits.
The choice for shooting hard vs soft light is quite an easy one for many people. But if you don’t understand what the difference is, what difference it makes to your subject, or how to create it, soft light can be a bit of a mystery. Soft light is fantastic for portraits, though. It’s particularly flattering, especially to ladies, and isn’t that difficult to understand.
This video from Caleb Pike at DSLR Video Shooter walks us through how to get it and why we need it. Caleb uses his lights for video, although the principles are exactly the same for photography, too.
You can find out more about John on his website or follow him on Facebook and YouTube.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
Find my work on My website or follow me on Facebook or My page
